


the wheels on the bus go up your nose

by patxaran



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Middle School, Humor, Other, do you believe in magic?, leorio saves the day, magic school bus - Freeform, respiratory system
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 14:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6757225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patxaran/pseuds/patxaran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cool Dude school nurse Leorio finds out why stuffy student teacher Mr. Kurta never goes on field trips with his class.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the wheels on the bus go up your nose

**Author's Note:**

> This fic _barely_ qualifies as crossover with how much it ignores The Magic School Bus cast, so I'm not really uploading it as such. I also made Ms. Frizzle a middle school teacher instead of third grade, as I have zero time for eight-year-olds....
> 
> Kurapika is a student teacher, Leorio is a substitute assistant to the school nurse (uh…wut), and Gon and Killua are students. The magic school bus is magical, and a school bus. That’s the premise. And somehow it got way fucking long.

The boy with the scrape on his knee was new. Leorio couldn't find him in the catalogue of students, which annoyed him because no matter how much he looked at the name Freecs, he couldn't convince himself that it wasn't misspelt. The boy, presumptively named Gon Freecs, promised him that this was the proper spelling. However, the somewhat dim, wide-eyed expression on his face made Leorio doubt if Gon was the most reliable source on this. Leorio found he had to ask himself, with total, unabashed honesty: If this Gon was exactly as ditzy as he looked, did that mean Gon was also ditzy enough not to know how to spell his own surname?

"You know what, I'm not writing this hall pass," said Leorio. "I'll take you to class myself and explain. Who do you have for homeroom? Ms. Frizzle? I think the security officer who brought you here told me something like that."

"Yep!" said Gon. "We're supposed to go on a field trip today. We're going to a doctor's office, and we're going to talk to the doctor. Are you a doctor?"

"I'm the substitute nurse," said Leorio. "Didn't you hear them tell you they were taking you to the school nurse after you fell off the goal post you were climbing this morning?"

"I didn't know school nurses could be guys," said Gon admiringly. "That's cool."

Leorio was pleasantly surprised by this unanticipated show of support from the unlikeliest of pint-sized sources. It caused him to wonder once more just what the hell it was that happened to kids at the end of twelve years that made them turn into such assholes once they became fully realized teenagers. There was a warmth to Gon that was sure to vanish mysteriously some time in the next ten months or so, and it made Leorio feel prematurely sad for its inevitable loss. Thus was the pain of working with children in the transitional years of adolescence. Puberty hit, and pow!—that's all she wrote for how much you could stand to hang around a kid.

"Hello," said Leorio to the woman who answered the classroom door. "I'm Mr. Paladiknight, the substitute for the assistant nurse. I wasn't sure where this boy was supposed to go this period, as he's been recently enrolled and isn't showing up on my computer. He said he had a field trip today; so, I just brought him here myself since that seemed faster. Wouldn't want him to miss the bus."

The woman intently listening to this [far too long] explanation was in fact not a woman. She was a young man name Kurapika Kurta. Since moving to Walkerville a year ago, he'd come to terms quickly with his youthful, feminine aspect and the confusion that it caused. No-one in his home town had thought he'd looked like a girl, but apparently he looked so much like a girl to people here that it wasn't uncommon for strangers to become angry with him upon discovering he was actually male. He'd developed a thick skin to the eventual insults and wry comments, and also a sixth sense for telling then someone had just assumed he wasn't a guy.

"I'm Mr. Kurta," he said, subtly emphasizing the title prefixing his name so that Leorio wouldn't miss it. "I'm the student teacher for Ms. Frizzle. She's outside working on the bus. There seems to be a problem with the engine."

"Does that mean we're not going on the field trip?" asked Gon between them. Leorio had no words because he was busy working out whatever hints might be visible proving that Kurapika was actually a man. Mainly, his eyes hovered around Kurapika's chest like an absolute, shameless creep.

"No, there's only a delay," said Kurapika with a small smile to Gon. "But since you were with the nurse, you missed the introduction of your newest classmate. Maybe you can say hello to him and share your experience. He's sitting in the back, by the globe."

Gon looked across the room to the quiet, white-haired boy with the sullen expression and seemly non-existent desire to interact with any of the children chatting and passing notes around him. Gon understood his feelings, since he'd only started at Walkerville Middle School on Monday. The new boy was probably nervous, so Gon hurried over to greet him and make him feel doubly welcomed.

"How's working with Ms. Frizzle?" asked Leorio to Kurapika as Gon went to the back of the room. "They tell me she's a weird lady. I haven't met her yet, though."

It was obvious Leorio was in no hurry to return to the nurse's office. The nurse's office was boring before the lunch break got into full swing and students started bounding off the walls and into each other as they made a mad dash for the cafeteria and a bittersweet half hour of relative freedom. Yesterday had been Wednesday, Chicken Day, the most dangerous food rush of them all. Students had filed into the nurse's office with too many jammed fingers and twisted ankles, all for the sake of seven reheated chicken nuggets and three choices of overly sweet dipping sauce. Besides that one weekly rush, though, not much really happened at work. Leorio had been at the school only a week and a half as a substitute assistant to the head nurse, and already he was climbing the walls for something, anything to occupy his time.

"She's a fun teacher. The students love her," said Kurapika, watching the students with a serene, distant expression. Chaotic middle school classrooms were this guy's Zen, Leorio supposed. He was going into the right profession.

"Are you excited for the field trip?" asked Leorio. "I never went on a field trip to see a doctor's office in school. It sounds great."

The change in Kurapika was abrupt, his expression of calm serenity evaporating like spat water on asphalt in summer. His face flickered strangely with the fear of some unknown dread, startling Leorio who was looking right at him. Before he could correct it, Kurapika's eyes had already narrowed automatically in reaction to an emotion tangled somewhere between distaste for the subject matter at hand and the raw, sharp memory of past terror.

"I don't go on the field trips," he said in a soft, hollow voice that made Leorio feel afraid. "I write lesson plans while they're gone."

"Oh," said Leorio, reading correctly that this was a topic better off backed away from. "So, uh, how long have you been student teaching?" he ventured instead.

"A month," said Kurapika. He was still tense, because what had upset him had cut right to the bone, and there was no way to brush it off quickly. The barest politeness was the maximum of what he could manage right now. "I'm mostly observing these days, but I've taught a few lessons."

Leorio nodded knowing, although he knew next to nothing about teaching. "So, what are you going to teach when you become a teacher?" he asked.

"Science," said Kurapika. He nodded to the classroom décor. "Obviously."

This was embarrassing for Leorio, who only then realized that he was indeed standing in a science classroom replete with endless scientific artifacts and science themed posters. Gon and the new student were already poking around the shelves, striking the balls hanging from a Newton's cradle in different, increasingly forceful combinations to test it out. Kurapika called their attention and told them to be gentler with the item or they wouldn't be allowed to touch it ever again. The new boy offered a sly smile in response, remaining suspiciously quiet while Gon promised they wouldn't break anything.

"Alright, class! The bus is fixed, so let's get rolling," cheered Mrs. Frizzle, entering the room behind Leorio. She was dressed in a bizarre medicine themed outfit consisting of a pristine, form-fitted lab coat and accessories. There was a loudly neon pink, rhinestone studded stethoscope thrown around her neck like the costume jewelry it likely was and not a respectable, functioning medical instrument. She also wore a ridiculous mirror on her head, the kind no general practitioner had been seen in since maybe the 50s, strapped over her frizzy red hair with a clashing pink band. The coup de grâce, however, was a pair of bizarre, maybe not entirely school appropriate, earrings shaped like dangling syringes and filled with matching pink glitter paint. The overall look was, in sum, the most unprofessional thing Leorio had ever seen in his entire career, and he still attended multiple adult Halloween parties each October like a religious observance.

"She always dresses like that," said Kurapika, noting Leorio's stunned expression. "Don't gape. It only encourages her to outdo herself next time."

"She wears that outfit every single day?" asked Leorio. It was impossible not to gape. He gave up resisting it after a single try.

"Of course not that particular outfit," said Kurapika. "But she follows themes depending on the unit we're on. I suspect she feeds off the love of children and the embarrassment of adults. She especially goes all out when there's a…field trip."

Kurapika turned away suspiciously when Leorio shot him another questioning glance. Field trips were verboten with the otherwise cool, controlled Mr. Kurta. Leorio was aching to know why, but unsure how to broach the topic after having only just met the man.

In truth, Kurapika couldn't yet admit the total nightmare he'd seen and lived in that horror of a bus without feeling like he'd be taken for a crazy person without question. It hadn't been right. It wasn't proper. Absolutely nothing in his teaching education courses had prepared himself for the altered reality one entered into upon stepping foot on that damnable bus, and until he could get a handle on it, he wasn't going to go anywhere near the thing. Ensuring his continued, blissful sanity, albeit derived from a willing ignorance, depended upon it.

"Hello, Mr. Paladiknight," said Ms. Frizzle as she lined the children up and directed them where to find the bus. "I'm sorry I'm in a rush. We should meet up and get to know each other more sometime. I've been looking for someone to chaperone our next trip, since Mr. Kurta is too busy with schoolwork to attend."

The way the woman said that they should get to know each other came off as a suggestion Leorio wasn't entirely sure he should take. He looked to Kurapika for guidance, but Kurapika wasn't looking back. He'd moved to the back of the room, unloading an entire satchel's worth of textbooks onto a cluster of desks. He proceeded to bury his nose in them absolutely, like an ostrich buried its head in the sand.

Ch'. Typical college student behavior, retreating into academia when called upon to do anything they were averse to, but also too polite/too poor in social currency to outright turn down. Leorio was pissed, but it wasn't like Kurapika really cared all that much if he was. Kurapika's struggle was one for survival and sanity, and he'd more than willingly throw a person right under that magic school bus barreling into his life if it meant he never had to step foot inside of it again.

"Uh, sure," said Leorio. "Just give me some details later, and I'll see if I can help out."

"That's terrific!" said Ms. Frizzle. "I'm off now. Hold down the fort if you will, Mr. Kurta. I expect your lesson plans and reflections to be outstanding."

"I assure you they will be," said Kurapika. "Enjoy your trip."

With a grandiose wave and a bow to the two of them, Ms. Frizzle swept the final students and herself out of the classroom and down the hall. Leorio shot another questioning look at Kurapika, but the younger man remained focused on his books. Eventually, Leorio excused himself after feigning checking the time. There was a lot of important sitting and swiveling in circles to be done in the nurse's office for him, and a lot of avoidant pretending to read and study for Kurapika. Meanwhile, on the bus to the doctor's office, Gon and his new best friend cheered and hoped today would be one of those cool trips their classmates had told them about where the bus was shrunk down to the size of a bacteria and they burrowed down into some sick kid's mucus membrane to check out the triggers of an autoimmune response first hand.

* * *

“Alright, Gon and Killua, you’re with me. If you stray out of my sight for so much as a single second, this field trip is over and we’re getting back on the bus,” said Leorio, pulling himself up and squaring his large shoulders in order to impose his adult authority over the rambunctious pair of preteens. “Your teacher told me you wrecked havoc in the last trip, and now I’m here to keep an eye on you. You can call me Leorio.”

“But Ms. Frizzle calls you Mr. Paladiknight,” said Gon, confused.

“I’m more of first name basis kind of guy,” said Leorio with what he imagined to be a cool, dismissive wave of his hand that let the two kids before him know that as long as they were on Mr. Leorio’s good side and did as Mr. Leorio said, they could be just as cool as Mr. Leorio was. Coolness was an exclusive club around here, and Leorio was the gatekeeper promising them a way in if they’d only behave for this trip. 

“Plus, guys,” he added in a more familiar, confiding tone. “I’m totally not a teacher. I’m just a normal guy here to keep an extra eye on the kiddos. No need for formality between us civilians, right?”

“Cool. I’ve never had such an old man for a friend,” said Gon in amazement.

"We're not friends," Leorio corrected him while winching at the inadvertent age jab. "I'm just a chill, cool guy."

“Whatever. You’re probably a loser if you’re chaperoning a middle school friend trip,” said Killua with an icy coldness than Leorio didn’t think had a right to originate from a twelve-year-old. “C’mon, Gon, let’s get a seat in the back where no-one can bother us.”

Leorio was left staring after as the two bounded off towards the front of the school where the bus was parked and waiting. They raced against each other and jumped down the distance of seven concrete steps, sure to break their necks if their knees hadn’t been made of some kind of prepubescent exclusive, unnaturally cushioning joint padding that miraculously absorbed the impact. Ms. Frizzle chided them lightly for running in the school building. The aerobatic surfing down handrails that followed and Killua’s impeccably landed backflip didn’t seem to have perturbed her in the slightest. Leorio found he was scared, then, wondering what the two could’ve possibly done to cause problems in the last field trip if treating the school like a parkour course wasn’t a big deal.

As much as Leorio was now approaching the next five hours with newfound trepidation and doubt, he was nowhere near as bad off as the nearly catatonic Mr. Kurapika Kurta. Despite his best efforts, Kurapika had been unable to finesse his way out of this trip. While originally he’d thought Leorio agreeing to chaperone would prove something of a boon in his continual efforts to avoid all field trips for the next six months, it had actually turned out quite the opposite. Because Leorio was there, it meant Kurapika could spend time studying on the bus while Leorio helped to monitor the children and Ms. Frizzle drove. That way, he could compromise between getting his classwork done while still interacting with the students and “enjoying” a “fun” day outside of school.

“You need to sit down?” asked Leorio, coming up alongside the small man in the dorky sweater vest with the windowpane check. Kurapika’s face and hands were coated in a thin sheen of sweat, and his lips had lost all natural, healthy color. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Kurapika. Secretly, he hoped he would actually pass out.

“Here,” said Leorio, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket. “Before you call me an old man for carrying handkerchiefs around, let me just tell you these fine vintage teashades you see me wearing don’t wipe smudges and dust off themselves. Take this and dry your forehead with it. You’ll freak the kids out if you spend the whole trip looking like the ghost of a wax figure.”

“Th-thank you, Mr. Paladiknight,” said Kurapika, accepting the snowy white and perfectly folded handkerchief held out to him.

“Call me Leorio,” said Leorio. “Hold on to that handkerchief, if you want. I’ve got more on me if I need them.”

Kurapika nodded and quickly blotted his face. He didn’t ask how Leorio was so relaxed when confronted with as much panic as Kurapika was obviously failing at concealing. Kurapika was thankful that Leorio didn’t press the matter, either. He merely offered Kurapika his handkerchief, told him to keep it, and then strode off towards the waiting school bus, cool as you please. Ms. Frizzle was already in the driver’s seat, turning the key and starting the ignition with a tremendous roar. For the shortest of moments, Kurapika dared to look at the front of the bus to see if he could discern the face hidden there that had haunted him lately in his dark, fear drenched dreams. The eyes must’ve been closed, though, because at that moment it looked for all intents and purposes an average, dated yellow school bus. Perhaps, he thought optimistically, it wasn’t even the same one as before. Perhaps this would be a normal field trip.

“Everyone accounted for, Mr. Kurta?” asked Ms. Frizzle after the final group of students, a reluctant Kurapika among them, boarded the bus.

“Everyone’s here,” said Kurapika, crumpling defeated into his seat in the middle of the bus. Behind him, a boy with red hair and glasses moaned that he hoped this would be a normal field trip. Kurapika couldn’t agree more. Leorio, who was listening in, wondered what such a complaint could possibly mean. Kids were supposed to love field trips. This boy probably had no friends. He was a social pariah best avoided at all cost if Leorio was going to maintain an illusion of cool in front of a pack of middle schoolers.

“Hey, Gon, do you think we’ll get to see inside of someone’s brain?” asked Killua as he and Gon stared wistfully out the back window together. 

“We’re studying respiration, so I doubt it.”

“Ugh, lungs are so boring,” said Killua with a sigh. “This is bullshit.”

“Watch your language, kid,” said Leorio, who was sitting in the aisle across from them. “We’re gonna have a clean, G-rated trip here. Show some respect. There’s an adult right next to you.”

“What are you going to do about it, old man?” asked Killua in challenge, but at that moment a hand appeared from behind him and clapped itself over his mouth. Gon smiled apologetically to Leorio and then turned Killua around to face him instead. They bickered for a few moments, Killua insisting Gon’s intervention had been unnecessary, and Gon reminding him they might get kicked off of the field trip if they caused too many problems. Moodily, Killua agreed with him. He sulked for a moment, but soon forgot all about it when Gon pulled out a handheld game console and challenged him to some kind of virtual race. Across the aisle, Leorio visibly relaxed, certain there was no way the two could get in much trouble if they were playing games.

“Seatbelts, everyone!” Ms. Frizzle called back from the drivers seat. It was the first time Leorio noticed that their bus had seatbelts in it. Weird. Gon and Killua exchanged knowing glances and grinned, scrambling for their own seatbelts in an instant. Further ahead, Kurapika still looked to be slowly dying and didn’t move. His seatbelt was already fastened tight across his hips, and his eyes were squeezed shut. It appeared as if he were counting to himself quietly, like the cowardly, terrified friend forced to go on the rollercoaster with his companions and dreading the first plunge as he silently prayed it would all be over quickly. The unfortunate student next to him seemed more than a little disturbed by his behavior and scooted away, trying not to touch him even with the fabric of her skirt.

“Quick review question, class,” Ms. Frizzle announced over the speaker system that broadcasted throughout the entire bus. “What are the most important parts of the respiratory system?”

Leorio smiled smugly to himself, confident that he knew the answer. The only other adult he could’ve shared a knowing look with, however, was currently being too weird to function. Around him, the class proved it was decidedly terrible at answering the question, and students struck out repeatedly after only “you breath in oxygen through your nose or mouth”. Finally a smart blonde girl with pigtails chimed in, reminding everyone of the existence of the larynx and pharynx. From there, it was roughly five different pronunciations of the words bronchi and alveoli, and they were finally ready to set out.

“I wish we had ravioli in our lungs. I’m starving!” joked a fat boy further up. His friends laughed at this, happily oblivious to the unmitigated horror show it would’ve been if lungs really were constructed of something as mushy and starchy as ravioli, or if they’d contained pasta of any form at all within their delicate passageways.

“Let’s get going,” said Mrs. Frizzle. “Off to explore the respiratory system!”

Gon and Killua cheered loudest of all as the bus began to roll out. They were still cheering a moment later when Leorio realized they hadn’t left the parking lot. At the exit leading to the main road, Ms. Frizzle had turned the bus around, directing it toward the lot behind the school.

“What’s going on?” Leorio asked Gon, since he didn’t suspect Killua would answer him. Killua would just make a joke about him being old and pull a face, and Leorio didn’t want to waste that kind of time right now.

“Where gonna check out some kid’s respiratory system,” said Gon. “She’s gonna shrink the bus. And then, we’re gonna fly up someone’s nose.”

“What?” asked Leorio. “She told me we were going to an exhibit. We’re not literally going up a nose. Maybe it’s just designed like a nose so you can follow the path of the air better.”

“No, you’ll see,” said Gon. “She’s gonna tell the bus to do it’s stuff, and we’re gonna shrink. This bus is magic.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no such thing as—”

“C’mon bus, do your stuff!” cheered Ms. Frizzle from the driver’s seat. And then there was magic. They were gonna shrink.

* * *

A strange, indescribable sensation passed through Leorio at that moment. Outside, the world began to move by quickly, becoming a blur, except he didn’t have the feeling that they were moving forward. They seemed to be progressing to some inner point rapidly while remaining exactly in place, as if they were travelling directly into themselves, towards their very own cores. Leorio instinctively shut his eyes to block it out, certain that if this lasted more than a quarter of a second, he was going to be sick.

As sudden as it had started, the sensation was gone. A recognizable feeling of movement returned, except Leorio had trouble placing it, because it wasn’t the sort of movement a bus normally had. Through the distracting cheers and exclamations of the children around him, he strained to work it out. He didn’t dare open his eyes until he did so.

Leorio suddenly remembered what Gon had finished telling him moments before.

But no, that couldn’t be it. They couldn’t possibly be….

Leorio’s eyes shot open and he leaned over the student next to him, gawking out the window like a toddler pressed against the glass of the beluga tank at the aquarium.

“We’re FLYING?” he shouted, looking at the world outside. The concrete of the parking lot was below, and they hovered above in a gentle, swaying ups and downs, suspended by the balanced force of twin jets on both wings. Because there were wings now. Exactly two more wings than any school bus was supposed to have.

“But how are we flying if we haven’t even moved?” said Leorio, scratching his chin. It then occurred to him that, while their position had more or less remained the exact same, their size had decreased exponentially. That’s what the movement outside had been earlier. They’d been shrinking down to the size of a speck of dust. Quickly, he rounded back to Gon and Killua.

“What’s going on?”

“Pfft, how many times are we going to have to tell you?” asked Killua, rolling his eyes, hard. It was quite possible he’d hurt himself doing so. “Look around you, idiot. We’ve shrunk to a size to enter some seventh grader’s nose. They’re doing a lab today about blowing up balloons and lung capacity stuff, and we’re gonna see what their lungs do. It’s not as cool as you seem to think it’s going to be, but I guess it’s better than nothing. I’m still waiting for when we learn about brains.”

Leorio stared at the boy mutely, his mouth hung open and useless. A small, scratchy, stuttering sound emanated from the back of this throat, but he was too shocked to make any attempt at meaningful utterances. The children around him seemed oddly comfortable with the fact that they were going to navigate the respiration-centered inner workings of some strange kid in another class. Everyone minus Kurapika, of course. Looking at him now with his hands clenched tightly in his lap, endeavoring to ignore and possibly wait out this entire experience in a meditative state with his eyes fixed shut, it all suddenly clicked. It was now extremely clear to Leorio why Kurapika was such a weird guy about field trips, and Leorio didn’t blame him. This…this was way too much.

The bus then began to move after Ms. Frizzle announced something about how they should all hold on tight, they were in for a windy ride. Leorio gulped and held into the seat between his legs as the bus zoomed forward towards the open window leading into the seventh grade science classroom. Students in the forms of giants sat around their massive lab tables in groups, reading silently along with the instructions for the lab as the teacher explained the expectations to them. The bus landed with a jolt on the edge of a shelf in the back of the room, and Ms. Frizzle got up from her seat to stand at the head of the center aisle.

“Okay, class, we’re going to enter while they are in the first part of their lab, when they’re supposed to be breathing normally. We’ll shrink down a bit further into a speck small enough to travel all the way to the lungs before class is over, but before that we’ll explore the inside of a nostril. Can any of you tell me what we can expect to see in the nostril that’s related to the respiratory system and possibly another one of the systems we’ve studied before? Whoever answers correctly will be the first let out to explore.”

Hands shot up throughout the bus. Noticeably absent were the hands of Killua and Gon, who weren’t confident they really knew anything about the nose other than that air went through it when you closed your mouth, and only then if you didn’t have a cold. Ms. Frizzle did not miss this, and called Leorio over after she finished conducting her summary review of the nostril. Leorio, flustered, forgot to unbuckle his seatbelt and couldn’t figure out what was impeding him in his increasingly desperate efforts to stand. Killua sneered and reached over to press the button for him, which just embarrassed Leorio further.

“Sorry about that,” said Leorio as he staggered forward and met Ms. Frizzle in the front of the bus. His legs were weak, and he felt like he might vomit.

“Oh, you’re doing wonderfully for a first time, don’t worry,” said Ms. Frizzle with a wink. Leorio wasn’t reassured by much. “Have you ever heard of sea-legs? Well, a magic school bus is like that. It takes some getting used to. You’ll be physically recovered in a few minutes. I’d even say that in a few more trips, you’ll be bolting from window to window just like the kids.”

“Huh,” said Leorio. The casual tone of Ms. Frizzle's voice mystified him. He tried not to look too carefully past her and out to the giants’ classroom outside. It was easier to talk when he avoided thinking about where exactly he was and what exactly was going on. “So, this is a _magic_ school bus,” he said thoughtfully, once more grabbing his chin in an effort to stimulate his insistently stagnant brain that refused to accept any of this as real. “Huh.”

“I can already see you’re going to be a natural at this,” said Ms. Frizzle with another playful wink. “You don’t demand a lot of answers, which is good for you.” She looked appraisingly over the occupants of the bus, who were all chattering away excitedly, waiting for the fun part of the trip to start. There remained one obvious exception. “In any case, you’re taking this better than Mr. Kurta, I’m afraid. I was hoping the addition of another adult might get him to come out of his shell a bit and relax.”

“I don’t think he’s in his shell exactly,” said Leorio, also noticing Kurapika and that he hadn’t budged an inch even by accident. It was as if he were stone. “I think he’s off in his own world.”

“He at least attempted to help me lead the class the last time,” said Ms. Frizzle with a sigh. “But he was too distracted trying to make sense of it all the whole trip. It’s a shame. And the bus had taken such a liking to him, too.”

“The bus did what?” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll introduce you both once we’ve landed in the nostril. We’ll have plenty of time,” said Ms. Frizzle. She ushered him toward the driver’s seat and pointed to the science classroom below. Against his better judgment, Leorio was compelled to look out. He swiftly grabbed a bar for support as he knees once more began to tremble. “We’re aiming for the smaller boy, there in the back of the class,” Ms. Frizzle continued. “He hasn’t got allergies, so we don’t have to worry about taking an abrupt exit on the Achoo Express, if you know what I mean.”

“The…?”

“It’s a safe bet he won’t sneeze once we’re in there.”

“Huh, I see,” said Leorio with a solemn nod before realizing too late and that the “achoo express” was supposed to have been a joke. “Sorry for not laughing. It was clever,” he said apologetically. “I’m just…this is just really weird for me.”

“You’re in safe hands, Mr. Paladiknight. No need to fret,” said Ms. Frizzle brightly. She pulled a textbook out from the bag behind her chair. “What I want you to do is go over this part of the unit with Gon and Killua. It’s dangerous out there if they don’t know what they’re doing. We had a close call last week when Killua tried to take Gon with him and separate from the main group. Apparently he’s obsessed with seeing the brain and thought he’d just swing by there while we were exploring the tonsils. I’m going to need you to keep a careful eye on those two, particularly while we’re still in the skull region.”

“I can do that,” said Leorio, taking the textbook from her and noting the page number. “And what about Mr. Kurta? Do you want me to wake him up or something?”

“I’d like you to try if you don’t mind,” said Ms. Frizzle. “I could use a hand with the review questions, and he has such a terrific grasp of the material. Plus, the bus was really looking forward to seeing him after I told it Mr. Kurta was coming on the trip today.”

Leorio nodded affirmatively and straightened up, feeling a little more in control of the situation now that he had an active role in it. He made his way back down the center aisle to where Kurapika was sitting. Kurapika wasn’t counting anymore, but he hadn’t relaxed a muscle since he’d sat down. Leorio gave the girl next to him permission to change seats and took her place. With a deep breath, he adjusted his teashades and rested a large, reassuring hand on the slight man’s shoulder.

“How are you holding up, Mr. Kurta?” Leorio asked softly, summoning forth every ounce of the warmest, most soothing bedside manner he could muster. Kurapika shifted slightly towards the sound of his voice and allowed the shoulder under Leorio’s hand to relax some. He didn’t open his eyes.

“Do you need something? Maybe some water?” asked Leorio. There was no answer, so he turned around and waved to Gon, ordering him to bring up the case where Leorio’d packed his lunch and snacks. From the case, Leorio took a small bottle of cool water and, not sure how to hand something over to someone who wasn’t opening their eyes, shrugged and placed it gingerly between Kurapika’s clenched fists. Surprisingly, Kurapika took the bottle and opened it, moving much faster than Leorio would’ve expected and drinking down almost half in one go before he had to breathe. His head, which he’d been keeping pressed against the back of the seat for stability, slumped forward limply as he lowered the bottle and twisted the cap back on. He held it out for Leorio to take it back, and Leorio did.

“Thank you,” said Kurapika softly. “Where are we?”

“Do you want to know, like, for real, or do you want me to fudge the truth a bit for you?”

“I can close my eyes and even cover my ears, but it’s impossible to willfully shut out the messages relayed by a functioning vestibular system.” He coughed lightly then, as if hesitating to say the next thing. “I am aware that we were flying a moment ago.”

“That’s right,” said Leorio. “We’re, uh, we’re on a bookshelf in the back of a science classroom.”

“Our next stop is a nostril?”

“That’s what the teacher said.”

“So, this is real then?”

“It would appear so, yes.”

Kurapika nodded. He supposed it was comforting at least to know that he wasn’t crazy. They couldn’t all be mutually hallucinating the same exact thing, could they? He leaned forward and raised a hand to block his peripheral view out the window, tilting in the direction of Leorio next to him. Slowly, unwillingly, he coaxed his eyelids up by a little bit. He could see his free hand, his thighs, his knees. There was Leorio’s water bottle in Leorio’s hand on Leorio’s lap. Beyond was the bulging back of the seat in front of them that shifted when the student leaning against it moved. Hard beneath Kurapika’s feet was the solid metal floor of the bus, which he tested by flexing lightly against it. He was cold on the side of his body pressing against the wall of the bus and the window. He was warm on the side pressing against Leorio. Leorio was far too big for this seat, what with his massive shoulders and long legs. Even now, one of those legs was sticking out into the aisle so he could lean down and look Kurapika in the face.

“That’s good,” said Leorio, congratulating Kurapika for opening his eyes at last. “Baby steps. Don’t rush yourself. We still have a few more minutes until we head for the next, uh, location.”

“Until we head for someone’s nostril,” said Kurapika glumly. “All the way down to the alveolar sacs.”

“But we’ll be fine,” said Leorio, giving Kurapika’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “And guess what? The teacher told me the bus is happy to see you, so, like, that has to be a good thing, right? If the bus likes you, nothing bad can happen to you, I’m sure.”

“Have you seen its face?” asked Kurapika, staring at his knees with a distant, empty expression.

“You mean the bus’s face?”

“Yes. With big, wide eyes and a giant, cartoony mouth. It can even smile.”

“So, the bus is alive?”

“It has a kind of sentience.”

“Huh,” said Leorio. This all just kept getting weirder and weirder, didn’t it?

“I’m going to attempt to look out the windows now before we start moving,” said Kurapika, gesturing for Leorio to lean back. His broad shoulders were blocking much of Kurapika’s view of his surroundings. Kurapika was thankful for it, but now was time to remove the training wheels and do all this looking around himself for real.

“Are you sure? Perhaps it might be best to wait until we’re…inside,” said Leorio, his voice heavy with concern.

“No,” said Kurapika. His expression changed, becoming deathly serious. “I have to do this. And I need to do it now.”

Leorio agreed and moved back until he was half out of the seat, his elbow twisted at a weird angle so he could keep the reassuring hand on Kurapika’s shoulder as a token of support. It wasn’t super comfortable, but he had to keep an eye on Kurapika in case the guy started having a spontaneous panic attack. It was likely he might. Even Leorio’s own throat caught then as he looked over to Kurapika and ended up inadvertently glancing out the window beyond the puffy dome of tousled blond hair. Although Leorio knew full well in the part of his mind that was trying desperately to be cool with all this that they were the size of a speck of dust right now, it was still hard to be reminded of it so abruptly. 

“Dear god…” Kurapika muttered, his eyes growing impossibly wide as he looked around him. He gaped in disbelief at the classroom just over the edge of the shelf, searching for words and failing. For a second, he turned and held Leorio’s gaze, reaching over with the hand he’d been using to block his vision earlier and touching Leorio’s fingers, as if assuring himself that they were real. He recoiled at the realization that they were definitely super real and shook his head. “This isn’t…” he started but stopped himself. Silently, he unbuckled his seatbelt and made as if he were going to stand. Leorio rose quickly to get out of his way.

Wearily, his expression dreamlike and yet coolly incredulous, Kurapika drifted up to the front of the bus were Ms. Frizzle was waiting. She smiled and told him how good it was that he was doing so much better now. She expected him to help lead the students in the tour of the respiratory system with her. Kurapika agreed to this with some vague, half-completed gesture of affirmation, only barely listening to her. His full attention was on horrifying the view outside the large front windows, which he couldn’t pull himself away from.

* * *

“Alright, class, it looks like the lab is about to start. Take a seat,” said Ms. Frizzle. She’d already maneuvered Kurapika down into a free seat behind the driver and given him a copy of the field trip itinerary to look over in preparation. He was currently turning the pages, his eyebrows knit together tightly in determination. “When we arrive at the nostril, you’ll be fitted with safety suits so we can go out exploring.”

There was a chorus of cheers all around. Exploring was awesome. Nostrils were awesome. Everything was awesome. Leorio took his original seat across the aisle from Killua and buckled himself in. Nothing was awesome.

The bus rumbled to life and took off, sweeping down amongst the students of the seventh grade science class at a speed Leorio and Kurapika could only quantify as way too damn fast. They proceeded on course to the student Ms. Frizzle had pointed out earlier, hovering invisible around his face like a satellite around a fleshy, pore-pitted planet, waiting for the sudden intake of breath that would suck them right in. They didn’t have to wait long. The bus shook as the suction began on cue, and they were pulled in with an almost audible whoosh, like crumbs sucked into a vacuum nozzle.

“It’s so gross! It’s so gross!” shouted Leorio over the din of excited oh’s and ah’s from the students. At the sight of so many up close and personal nose hairs swaying in the breeze that passed through them, he’d been entirely unable to deal. “Dear god, what the hell is happening?”

Killua laughed and pointed out what he was ninety-three percent sure was a giant, crusty portside booger. Leorio had the lack of foresight to turn his head and look towards it as Killua excitedly drew his attention. “Check this shit out, Leorio. It’s cool. There’s strands of that stuff. Ewwww.”

“Argh! Burn out my eyes!” Leorio cried out in despair. These kids didn’t know or care what gross meant, and they flaunted it proudly. They only verbalized their empty exclamations of “eww” and “gross” as part of the social contract to express some level of revulsion, although they clearly felt none. Leorio had trained in hospitals, dammit, and he still couldn’t stomach something like a five-story snot cavern covered in hair, even when he knew well in advance what was coming. These kids were inhuman. They were monsters, every last one of them, and they disgusted him. Everything about this trip disgusted him.

“Calm down, Leorio,” said Gon. “We get to wear special suits, so everything is fine.”

“I’m not going out into that,” said Leorio as the bus planted itself somewhere along the inner wall of the nostril. “Forget it. Shrink me down to the size of dust particles, fine. Fly me around up some kids nose, fine. But don’t make me go out there and crawl around in the boogers.”

Gon and Killua didn’t seem to understand Leorio’s aversion to this. They were too busy looking around expectantly for the special suits to arrive so they could go out and have snot ball fights or occupy themselves in something else equally horrific and unsanitary.

“Okay now, class, listen carefully. We only have a few minutes here, so don’t wander off,” said Ms. Frizzle. She was already decked out in a bright pink protective suit, though only a minute had passed since they’d landed. This wasn’t the only strange change to have occurred, either. The inside of the bus seemed to have gotten wider, too, with ample room for the students now milling about as they located and donned their own complicated protective suits with practiced ease. 

“I’ll be waiting outside the door, so put on your exploration suits quickly and follow me. Except for you two.” Ms. Frizzle indicated she meant Gon and Killua. “You will have to stay here and go over the chapter with Mr. Paladiknight. You can explore with the class after we’ve reached the alveoli.”

“Fuck that,” said Killua angrily, or, at least it was what he tried to say around Gon’s instinct to muffle his words at that very instant by sticking a hand in his face.

“Shhhh,” said Gon with some reproach. “You’ll be in the bus the whole trip if you say stuff like that in school.”

“You’re right, Gon. Sorry,” said Killua. He actually seemed pretty ashamed of himself, which made Leorio feel a sudden surge of respect for Gon. Killua was lucky to have such an uncommonly prudent and caring friend looking out for him.

“I guess it’s just us three guys,” said Leorio, propping the textbook on his lap and opening it to the chapter about respiration. “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you kids can get back to your trip.”

Surprisingly, Killua raised his hand. He was three feet from Leorio, and he was raising his hand. It was strangely respectful of him, which probably meant it had to be an important question.

“Yes?” asked Leorio.

“I was wondering: Is the nose connected at all to the brain? Like, didn’t the Egyptians remove people’s brains through their noses and stuff?”

Leorio instantly took this question as suspect. Ms. Frizzle had warned him about Killua’s fascination with brains. He weighed his options carefully before answering.

“The short answer is no, no, it isn’t,” said Leorio flatly. Killua’s high spirits sank instantly. He appeared to be downright defeated at this answer, causing Gon to wrap an arm around his shoulder to console him. Leorio sighed and adjusted his glasses. He was a gentle, softhearted man at his very core, and it distressed him to see Killua so heartbroken. 

“Listen,” said Leorio, trying to sound immeasurably kind as he spoke, but also firm. The result was he came off as preachy. “There are a few, extremely specific pathways in and out of a brain, and if you don’t know what you’re doing…well, do you know what the nervous system is?” Killua nodded slowly. “So you know electrical signals, nerve impulses, that stuff? That’s one way in, albeit kind of impossible if you want to enter a brain and actually see it. Do you know what the circulatory system is?” Killua nodded again, this time with more conviction. “Well, you’ll have to contend with something called the blood-brain barrier in that case. You could get in if you fell under the prerequisites of what can pass through that barrier, but it’s not an easy thing to do. It’s actually a real problem when treating diseases in the brain, because many useful drugs can’t cross that barrier easily.” 

Leorio paused and looked Killua directly in the eye, commanding his attention and not about to continue without it. “Pay mind to this part,” he said sternly. Killua gave another, serious and resolute nod. “It’s extremely invasive to try to get into a brain in other ways than those examples, okay? So, you shouldn’t be trying to sneak up there unannounced. If you try to force your way into the brain unnaturally because you don’t want anyone to ‘catch’ you, you’ll likely hurt whoever’s brain you’re invading. Brains are extremely complicated and hard to treat when something goes wrong, so believe me when I tell you that you _do not_ want to mess them up.”

Gon seemed to look on Leorio at that moment with a newfound sense of awe. “Wow! You sure know a lot about brains, Leorio.”

“That’s the benefit of both having one and using it,” said Leorio proudly, equally overwhelmed with his own impressive depths of knowledge. He adjusted his glasses primly, this time more out of smugness than true necessity. “I certainly hope I was able to teach you boys something.”

“Yes,” said Killua cheerfully. “We need to become something that can get through that barrier! This bus can totally do that!”

“Wait, what?” asked Leorio as Killua bolted out of his seat and toward the front of the bus.

“C’mon, Gon, let’s do this!” Killua called back. “Grab the textbook so we can look up what we have to turn us into.”

Leorio grabbed at the textbook that still lay unread on his lap, but Gon was faster and already halfway to the driver’s seat before Leorio could jump up and chase after him. He was delayed once again by forgetting he was buckled down by his seatbelt.

“Don’t you dare touch those controls,” Leorio ordered, leaping after them and catching up before they started pressing buttons. Thinking desperately, Leorio reached over and pulled the keys from the ignition, shutting everything down. Killua came up from behind and plucked the keys directly out of Leorio’s hand and tried to push him aside so he could restart the bus. Leorio fended him off while also trying to wrestle the keys back, and he nearly succeeded. Killua, realizing he was about to get the keys taken from him, tossed them at the last minute to Gon. When Leorio sprang up to go after Gon, Gon tossed them back to Killua, who then tossed them back to Gon, and so on and so forth all while Leorio spun around in repeated circles, the dancing fool of a monkey in the middle of them both. He was about to give up and just cover the ignition with his palms, when the keys were suddenly caught mid arch by a slender, swift hand rising up from the seat behind the driver’s.

“Mr. Kurta!” exclaimed Killua and Gon simultaneously. Kurapika was glowering menacingly down at them both from the seat he was standing on, pressing upon them heavily with the full authority that being an appendage of the classroom teacher allowed him. Gon and Killua rightfully began to cower, for Kurapika had the ultimate power to ban them from field trips for the rest of the year if he gave a bad enough report of their behavior. In fact, he would probably do exactly that, especially if it meant he got to stay at school during the trips to keep an eye on them.

“Do you two have any idea what kind of danger you could be putting us in by roughhousing like this while your classmates are wandering around Remi Padro’s nasal passages, completely dependent on the continual and correct functioning of this school bus?” Kurapika demanded to know. It took the other three people present a moment to realize Remi Padro was most likely the name of the kid who’s respiratory system the were here to investigate.

Gon and Killua were immediately repentant. They were just starting to grovel at their unsympathetic student teacher’s feet, but were soon interrupted by the fearful realization that a shadow had fallen upon them, throwing the bus and the surrounding area into utter darkness. Quickly, Gon ran to the back window with Killua to see what it was. Kurapika jumped down from his seat and rushed to the bus door, covering his mouth with Leorio’s donated handkerchief before opening the door wide and sticking his head out to see that was coming without wasting time squinting through the interfering reflections in the window glass. 

“Oh no,” he whispered into the soft, bunched fabric muting his words. He literally threw himself back into the bus, shouting urgently for Leorio to shut the door right the hell now and start the engine.

* * *

“It’s the kid’s finger,” Gon called to the adults in the front. “He’s picking his nose. That’s really unhygienic. Ewwwww.”

Leorio spat out a stream of atrocious yet succinct grown-up vocabulary words to himself and reached over to take the keys from Kurapika who had ended up sprawled on the floor of the bus in his hurry to get back inside as the ground began to shake. At that very moment, the bus heeled violently to the right, and would have sent Kurapika flying right out the door and into the glistening mucous sludge below save for Leorio reaching out and catching him by the wrist in time. Bracing himself with his feet as the bus inclined further and further rightwards, Leorio reached over with his free hand and pulled the lever for the bus door, shutting it completely. He then pulled Kurapika up, taking the keys from him while also putting him within reach of the driver’s seat, which Kurapika clung to the back of and let Leorio go. 

The finger worming its way into the nose had dislodged the very sheet of mucus the bus was parked on. Now they were being dragged forward into the light of day along with the booger, experiencing turbulence like no airplane any of them had ever flown on. Gon and Killua had fortunately had the presence of mind to buckle up when they’d realized the direness of the situation, while Kurapika and Leorio clung to the driver’s seat chair and the steering wheel respectively.

“Do you think he’s going to eat us?” asked Gon from the back, shouting over the sound like an earthquake shaking the world around them.

“Like hell he is!” cried Leorio, stabbing the keys into the ignition and turning. The engine came to life with a roar, but he realized he had no idea how to fly something with an automobile’s steering wheel as its primary control. Compounding this, it became apparent that Remi Padro was definitely planning on eating them. All four screamed in terror as the booger they were trapped upon was lowered speedily into the gaping maw of the giant, who probably thought he was sly. Who probably thought no-one had witnessed his disgusting, clandestine habit. Unfortunately, there were four captive witness right there on the salty gob of mucus itself, and each one was petrified as they came face to face with their entirely undeserved and gruesome deaths.

“Do something, bus!” Leorio shouted down at the controls, mashing buttons at random. “You’re sentient, so do something. We’re all gonna die.” 

There was a jolt that sent Leorio’s head back, knocking him against the thin arms clutching tightly to the chair back behind him. This hurt, but it also served to jolt his memory along with this upper body. “Mr. Kurta is on board, and he will die, bus. Your friend, your buddy, that guy will die if you don’t save us. He hasn’t got his seatbelt on, dammit!”

At this, a bright green button on the dashboard of endless buttons lit up. The arrow pointing down to it said “auto-pilot”, as if the bus seriously hadn’t realized how much they’d needed this five seconds ago before they were being scrapped directly onto Remi’s bottom front teeth in preparation to be mashed by his incisors. Leorio slammed his fist down on the button, and the jet engines boomed, the bus soaring up into the roof of the mouth right before Remi could grind his teeth together. There was no escaping the way they’d come in, as the lips had been closed, so instead the bus searched out a safe place to land. It decided on a small crevice between two molars, setting down gently and flashing a previously unlit “fasten seatbelt” sign to Leorio who rolled his eyes at it and looked back to see how Kurapika was doing.

“Mr. Kurta?” asked Leorio tersely between gritted teeth, not at all impressed with knowing that the bus had apparently been going to let them all die horrifically until it had been stated directly that Kurapika was on board. Sentient or not, that smacked of way more favoritism that Leorio felt comfortable trusting his life to. “Hey, we’ve stopped moving,” he said, nudging the shorter man with his elbow. There was still no answer.

Gon and Killua had come up front by then, both observing Kurapika curiously. The young man seemed to have shut down, unable to process the horror of what he’d just experienced. His knuckles were pale as he continued to cling to the back of the chair, unmoving except to breathe. Leorio sighed and motioned for the boys to come over so they could help him pry their student teacher off the driver’s seat. Working together, they were able to overpower his viselike grip on the chair and get him standing. 

Upon realizing he was on his own two feet, Kurapika seemed to recover slightly. He stood a moment there in the front of the bus, quiet and composed, deep in boundless thought that left him almost entirely unawares of those around him. He still had the handkerchief, which he looked down at indifferently before doing an about face and walking down the aisle. He once more took his previous seat near the front and sat there, becoming abnormally still.

“Mr. Kurta?” asked Gon, confused and a little afraid. Leorio felt a touch of anger rise inside of him at what he perceived as the failure of Kurapika to consider the impressionable audience of children present. The kids were definitely going to be freaked out by their respected student teacher suffering a complete mental break right before their eyes. Kurapika needed to keep it together, like Leorio did, because Leorio was a responsible adult.

“I think this guy is too serious; damn,” said Killua. He walked over and prodded Kurapika in shoulder. Kurapika did not respond. “He’s too smart for this stuff, you know? Smart people can’t believe in magic. They trust books too much.”

“I don’t believe in magic,” said Leorio sullenly. “And I’m doing great over here. I just saved all of our lives with how smart I am, but don’t rush to like thank me or anything for it.”

“Yeah, but the difference is you accept that magic is happening,” said Killua, affecting an uncharacteristically worldly tone that made Leorio feel Killua knew way more than he’d been letting on so far about magical school buses. “This idiot” Killua said, pointing derisively back with his thumb to the frozen Kurapika Kurta, “isn’t able to do that.”

“Huh,” said Leorio. He ran a hand over the fledgling beard sprouting out along his jawline, attempting clear his head and strategize. “So, should we try to wake him?”

Killua shrugged. “I’m going to check the textbook for the fastest way out of here,” he said. He told Gon to help him, and together they began to search for where the book had gone to in the chaos of only a few minutes earlier. Leorio, meanwhile, just kept waving a hand in Kurapika’s face, hoping to see a reaction.

“The textbook must’ve fallen out of the bus when the door was open,” said Killua from the back once the few available places to search had been exhausted.

“Leorio’s smart, he’ll know how to get us out,” said Gon. With this vote of confidence, Leorio beamed inwardly and decided Gon was his favorite.

“Just because he knows about brains doesn’t mean he knows about the respiratory system,” said Killua. “We have to get back to the nose were our class is.”

“Well, I’ll have you know that this guy _does_ know about the respiratory system, and he knows a lot,” Leorio butted in. “Plus, he’s right here, so show some respect.” He straightened his tie officially and stood in order to frown down at them both from full, intimidating height. The lithe Kurapika had been more effective than this only standing on a seat, but Leorio told himself that that was merely because Kurapika had had the added clout of being a person who could affect the students’ academic grades. “The nose and mouth are connected,” he told them sharply. “They meet in the pharynx and diverge at the larynx and the esophagus. You're both supposed to already know that, by the way.”

“Cool, then we just need to figure out how to operate this bus,” said Killua, unimpressed. He made his way to the driver’s seat and looked around him at the myriad of controls on display. He looked back up at Leorio. “How did you manage to fly this thing?”

“I told it Mr. Kurta was here, and then it told me to hit the autopilot button.”

“Are you serious?”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it? Autopilot is the green button there.”

Killua nodded and suggested to Gon to sit down. Leorio also took a seat in the front, across the aisle from Kurapika, and waited for Killua to press the green button. Killua did so. Nothing at all happened beyond the “fasten seatbelt” sign flashing more furiously than before.

“Oh, I guess we forgot to buckle up Mr. Kurta,” said Leorio, hoping over to get that done. “Okay, now try again.”

Killua pressed the green button a second time. Still there was nothing.

“Huh,” said Leorio. “Maybe we need more fuel?”

“Or maybe it knows Mr. Kurta is safe and doesn’t want to move and risk putting him in more danger,” said Killua bitterly. “Buses don’t know anything.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Leorio, laughing nervously. “If that’s the case, it should know it’s better if we leave here as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, but the bus likes him, so it isn’t thinking straight.”

“What?”

“The bus is fucking stupid.”

“Come again?”

“It likes this useless idiot right here,” said Killua, pointing at Kurapika. “This idiot who’s drooling on himself and in a coma.”

“And when you say it ‘likes’ Mr. Kurta, you mean what exactly?” asked Leorio, his face darkening.

“It like, well, it ‘like’ likes him. This bus has feelings and stuff.”

“You mean the bus is in love with you guys’ student teacher?”

“Yeah. Fuck this bus.”

Leorio paled, shifting his gaze from the control panel on the dashboard, which he mentally considered to be “the bus”, and then to Kurapika. This was too damn much. This was outrageous. Kurapika didn’t even like magic, and yet this magic bus had the audacity to claim a hopeless schoolgirl _crush_ on him. Leorio shook his head in sad disbelief. Pathetic. Talk about dreaming the impossible dream….

Spurred to action now that the situation was clear, Leorio leapt from his seat and across the aisle. He grabbed Kurapika by the shoulders and proceeded to shake him forcefully while demanding he snap out of it or else they were never getting out of here. The bus was trying to help Kurapika by staying tucked away in a safe place, and yet by helping him it was dooming them all. So long as Kurapika remained catatonic, the bus would idle there patiently and wait for him. It was obvious that they were going absolutely nowhere that Kurapika didn’t have a say in, and right now Kurapika wasn’t even speaking. 

What were they going to do later? How were they going to save the class? What if Remi Padro _flossed his teeth_?

Then and there, Leorio proceed to lose quite a substantial amount of his cool.

* * *

“MIS! TER! KUR! TA!” Leorio shrieked into the young man’s face. Kurapika remained motionless, staring off into the eerie middle distance. 

“Children, don’t look!” Leorio ordered before reaching back and slapping Kurapika hard across the face. Violence wasn’t good for children, especially when directed towards their classroom authority figures. 

“Oh hey, maybe you should let me hit him next. I want a turn,” said Killua, more engaged now in something an adult was doing than Leorio had ever seen him.

“You can’t hit him, Killua. That which you saw…that was just, uh, that was a test,” Leorio lied shittily. “It was a medical test for consciousness stuff.”

“Then maybe I can test it again. It didn’t seem to work that time. Let me try.”

“No, Killua, no!” shouted Leorio as Killua hurried over with his hand already poised in the air. “Only a school nurse can administer medical tests!”

“Aw, no fair,” said Killua, stopping and sulking off towards the driver’s seat where Gon had started to flail about uselessly, but with great determination, among the different controls. Kurapika hadn’t responded at all to Leorio’s professionally administered dose of face slapping, and Leorio couldn’t imagine what else to do for him. Meanwhile, at the front, none of the controls were responding to Gon’s messing with them, either. The whole damn bus had gone catatonic along with the useless student teacher.

“Shit,” Leorio muttered, thinking hard. He stepped away from Kurapika’s doll-like visage and returned to the driver’s seat. There, he methodically began to try every button, knob, and lever within reach. In effect, what he was doing was no better than what Gon and Killua had been doing already, but it made him feel better. Gon smiled brightly at Leorio beside him, assuring him they’d get out of this. Leorio wasn’t so confident. He then realized Killua was absent.

Leorio looked back, full of suspicion, to see Killua pulling at Kurapika’s hair forcefully in a new, only slightly less abusive attempt to wake him. Leorio narrowed his eyes. Suddenly, Killua raised his hand.

“DON’T YOU DARE SLAP MR. KURTA,” Leorio bellowed. “WE ARE DONE SLAPPING PEOPLE HERE.”

Killua pouted and crossed his arms grumpily before swiftly turning away. He muttered something indistinctly under his breath about how much Leorio sucked balls. Leorio pretended not to hear it.

“Maybe we can ask the bus to fix him?” said Gon. He turned to face the controls like they were a person in the room. “Hey bus,” he said, “can you help us wake up Mr. Kurta? He might need a doctor, and we don’t have any doctors here.”

A light flashed above, directly over Leorio, indicating he was maybe the answer.

“Yeah right, you stupid bus,” scoffed Leorio. “I’m the substitute assistant to the school nurse. And that guy needs a damn psychiatrist.”

The light stopped flashing.

“What else can we do? You fixed Mr. Kurta last time, right?” asked Gon. “Was there something in the water you gave him? There’s still half a bottle left.”

“It was just water,” said Leorio with a shrug. “Your student teacher isn’t a plant, Gon; water won’t revive him. The drink I gave him earlier was just something comforting and cold to stimulate him and bring him around. I think he was nervous then, but not having a full-blown panic attack. He was still responsive and hadn’t retreated into himself like he has now.”

“Then we should try to calm him down again,” said Gon, ignoring the hopelessness in Leorio’s tone as he offered his best-guess evaluation of Kurapika’s current mental state. “If he’s panicking, then he needs to calm down again, right?”

“I, uh, already tried that,” said Leorio, stretching the fingers of his right hand self-consciously at the memory. He shot a glance at Killua who’d started inching back towards Kurapika’s seat like Leorio wouldn’t notice. Killua backed off with a frustrated harrumph.

“Maybe something less scary,” said Gon, remembering the perhaps much too audible, unsympathetic blow of just moments before. “Maybe we need him to relax instead of wake up. If we let him know everything is okay and that he’s safe, he’ll feel better.”

Being a school nurse and thus startlingly little more than a man-shaped dispenser of paracetamol and ibuprofen to the same seven class skipping delinquents a day, Leorio had absolutely zero professional opinion on their precise course of action. Gon could’ve had a secret degree in psychotherapy for all anyone present cared. His guess was as good as any, if not better because he was the only one out of the three of them with some sort of plan to solve their problem.

“Fine,” said Leorio. “It will probably take forever, but what do we have if not time?” he added wryly. He stood and reached into the compartment above the driver’s seat for the bus’s first aid kit to see if there was anything useful inside. The bus had been flashing a number one and red cross on the clock face at him this entire time, but he’d been putting it off in order to vindictively impose his own will and watch the bus suffer. Slowly, the flashing digits had become more and more urgent, as if the bus couldn’t believe Leorio was being so childish at a time like this. “I guess we can start to lay him down and put a wet towel on his forehead. Try to keep him out of direct view of the windows somehow.”

Killua and Gon obediently took the aluminum blanket and terrycloth towel Leorio handed them and prepared a spot on the floor. Leorio carried over the surprisingly dense and cumbersome Kurapika and placed him down. It was lucky the bus was so unusually wide, since it gave them roughly enough room to huddle together around Kurapika and come up with a plan.

“Okay, let’s cover his eyes with the towel so that he can’t see out the window or anything,” said Leorio, sitting himself carefully on the floor at Kurapika’s head after nominating himself the de facto leader of this procedure in absence of any other adults on the bus. Killua handed him the towel, which Leorio soaked in a little water and placed on Kurapika’s forehead, pushing down in a way that forced the frozen man’s eyelids to lower. He then felt for Kurapika’s pulse, noting it was highly elevated and that his breathing was far too shallow. If they hadn’t laid him down, he’d maybe have passed out and topple out of his seat anyway from lack of oxygen. Leorio allowed himself a quiet, respectful moment to bask in the realization of how funny it was how everything all seemed to come back to respiration on this journey.

As he moved Kurapika’s hands to his sides, Leorio noticed they were quite cold and ordered Gon and Killua to rub them gently to improve the circulation. Gon and Killua did not protest. The sight of their student teacher in such a vulnerable, distressed state practically hypnotized them. Not even Killua could decide if he considered this cool, boring, or perhaps a bit frightening. Gon just felt immeasurable sorry for Kurapika. 

“Okay, do either of you kids have a coat? We should maybe tuck him in like a baby or something. Or, never mind, I’ll just put my jacket,” said Leorio after both boys shrugged and offered to give him their shirts. Leorio removed his jacket and draped it over Kurapika’s prone form. Thank God he’d been vain enough to wear a full suit and tie on a middle school field trip. “I’m going to prop him up a bit on my lap and rub his shoulders. Killua, you, like, I dunno, pat his head.”

“Is he a dog?” asked Killua, annoyed that he was being given such a weird job.

“We’re supposed to make him relaxed,” Leorio reminded him. “People find pats on the head relaxing, okay?”

“Okay, but if he wakes up and asks me why I’m such a weirdo, I’m telling him it was you who told me to do it.”

“Ugh. No, I don’t mean _literally_ pat him,” said Leorio after Killua started preforming an action that basically amounted to rhythmically tapping Kurapika’s crown like a robot mimicking how humans expressed affection. “Does your mom pat you on the head all weird like that? Does no-one ever show you love?” demanded Leorio.

“I’m patting, jeez,” said Killua. “You didn’t say give him a skull massage.”

“If I have to call it a skull massage—which I’d like to point out is not a thing people say—then fine, I meant you have to give him a skull massage. I give him a shoulder massage, and Gon gives him a hand massage. We’re all three Mr. Kurta’s goddamn masseurs, okay?”

“Well, I’m suddenly not finding this atmosphere very relaxing,” said Killua, though he’d already started stroking Kurapika’s hair properly as he spoke. “I doubt Mr. Kurta does.”

“Then keep your mouth shut and let me do all the talking,” said Leorio. Killua shrugged and rubbed the tips of his fingers through Kurapika’s hair with more urgency so Leorio couldn’t complain he wasn’t doing his part.

Leorio, meanwhile, prepared to speak. He closed his eyes and tried to think of something reassuring to say that wasn’t outright lies, but this wasn’t easy. He wanted to tell Kurapika that they were fine, that they’d made it out and were safely in the parking lot, getting ready to go home. This, however, was something Kurapika would never buy, traumatized or not. Kurapika was too damn smart. If the guy was going to be pulled out of his terror-stricken stupor, it was going to have to be the hard way.

“What’s Mr. Kurta’s first name again?” asked Leorio to Gon and Killua, who both shrugged. “Alright. Gon, check if he’s got a wallet.”

Gon checked and handed the wallet over to Leorio, who flipped it open to the I.D. card in the front. He frowned at what was written there and the passed it around to the other two to see what they could make of it. This was the first time any of them had been shown that Mr. Kurta’s first name was actually Kurapika, and none of them were entirely sure how to pronounce it properly.

“Hey…man,” said Leorio, giving up and keeping it ambiguous. Calling the guy Mr. Kurta seemed much too formal for this situation. “Gon and Killua and me, Leorio, we’re here for you…man. There’s some scary stuff out there, but it’s okay. Apparently magic is real and if you think about it, that’s actually kind of cool. Like, we’re the only people around who know magic exists. I know it’s taking some getting used to, but we’re totally safe here. We’re totally safe in this bus. It’s all going to be okay, buddy. We’ll help you with this. We’re going find the rest of the class, and then we’re going to go home, and it will just be like a dream. We can do this.”

Kurapika’s breathing deepened as Leorio continued to ramble on, shuffling through a long string of reiterations of the same five sentences about things being okay and people being there to support Kurapika. He told Kurapika literally every reassuring thing he could think of, praising small improvements and just trying his damnedest to give the overall impression that everything was super cool and controlled up here in the damp valley between two foreign molars. The gentle, mellifluous tone used was far more important than the actual words leaving Leorio’s mouth, though he did avoid mentioning dying or being lost or needing Kurapika to wake up or else they were all goners. Instead, he tried to radiate calm like a space heater radiated heat: concentrated, steady, and much too intense at the current range. 

“That’s it, buddy. Breathe deep. We can count time, okay? It’s a simple breathing exercise to help you focus. Plus, it’s great because we’re learning about the respiratory system right now. I’m going to count down from five very slowly, and I want you to breathe in as much as possible, really deep, and then hold that breath as I count five more….” 

Kurapika was surprising acquiescent to Leorio’s soft-spoken commands as Leorio led him through the breathing exercise. Leorio even noticed Gon and Killua attempting to follow along as Leorio counted the time. Gon’s eyes began to droop sleepily as he slowed his breathing and discovered his inner sea of calm and relaxation. In no time at all, he and Killua were slumped against each other, dozing softly in each other’s warmth and cocooned in the captivating murmur of Leorio’s soothing voice set to Maximum Bedside Comfort mode. Their hand massaging and hair caressing duties were soon forgotten as they formed a lazy pile on the floor at Kurapika’s feet.

“I’m just looking for your pulse,” said Leorio apologetically as he touched gently around the smooth, soft skin below Kurapika’s jaw. He’d made a fist beforehand to check his fingers weren’t cold, trying to make his presence as unobtrusive as possible. 

“This is good, buddy. You’re heart rate is much lower. Instead of me counting now, I want you to use your heartbeats. Focus on them, listen carefully, don’t worry about anything else. Breath in with five, hold for three, breathe out seven. Try to relax your body slowly on the exhale, focusing on releasing the tension in forehead,” he brushed a strand of hair away and pressed lightly the flat space between Kurapika’s eyes, “unclenching your jaw,” he pressed lightly on both temporomandibular joints, applying pressure in soft pulses, “down your neck, out to your shoulders, throughout your entire body. Just let everything relax. Relax and sleep.”

* * *

In no time at all, Leorio was the single person still awake in the entire bus. He sighed and let Kurapika’s head down onto the floor gently before standing up. There were three bodies between him and the front of the bus, so he went to the back for his case to eat a bit of lunch. Getting people to calm down was hungry work. Distantly, he could hear the occasional rumble of Remi Padro’s muffled voice as he spoke to his classmates. There must’ve been some sort of muting feature on the bus to keep such things from being deafening to those inside. He could see nothing but the rigid, plaque rimmed walls of teeth on either side and a bit of gum between. The wet sound of occasional passing saliva was almost enough to make his stomach turn, but he told himself it was like eating as you went through a car wash. Terrifically, the bus also seemed to be waterproof.

“This has been a strange day,” he mused to himself between bites of cold chicken sandwich. The icebox with the students’ lunches was still in the backseat, and he spared a passing thought for the class supposedly still up above them, trapped within in the nasal passages. Hopefully they hadn’t decided to wander too far back and plummet through to the nasopharynx, or else things had got downright dire for this failure of a field trip. Stuff within the nose was always in motion, either moving out or moving down. In such a shifting environment, the class wouldn’t be able to stay in one place forever.

Leorio crammed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and took a swig of soda to wash it all down. He wiped his hands off sneakily on the seat back closest to him and then made his way back to where Kurapika and the boys lay on the bus floor. He stood over them silently for a moment, noting each of the blissfully dreaming faces, and wished for all the world that he’d brought a coffee with him. He hadn’t expected a four-hour field trip to take so much out of him. But then, there’d been a hell of a lot he hadn’t expected when packing his bag of snacks that morning.

“Leorio?” a voice mumbled from around his feet. He recognized it as Kurapika, back from the dead at last.

“Is there anything I can get you? Is there anything you need?” asked Leorio, kneeling down and hovering over Kurapika, just in case the towel slipped and the other man could see the bus around them. As wide as the bus aisle had gotten, Leorio was still a massively shouldered man and could block most of the view using only his freakishly huge upper body.

“Water again, if you don’t mind,” said Kurapika. His hand was already moving up towards the towel, as if to remove it from his face, but Leorio reached over and held it in place as he grabbed the nearby water bottle.

“Baby steps,” said Leorio, chiding him gently. “We don’t need another episode right now. The bus is already worried to hell about you.”

“The bus? How did the bus tell you that? It doesn’t speak,” said Kurapika. Leorio could feel the other man’s brow furrowing beneath the damp towel.

“Oh trust me, it made itself crystal clear,” said Leorio. “I’m holding the water bottle near your left cheek, if you want to take it.” 

Kurapika nodded as much as Leorio’s hold allowed him and reached for the bottle. Leorio, his hand never leaving the towel for even a moment, helped Kurapika prop himself up far enough to take a drink.

“When are you going to let me open my eyes?” asked Kurapika after finishing the entire rest of the bottle in one go. “I know where we are. I’d already peeked before I called you.”

“I don’t want it to overwhelm you,” said Leorio. “You were scaring the kids. I don’t want them to have to see you acting like you were again. If you’re better, you’re better. If not, try to go back to sleep. I can help you with that.”

“I’m better,” said Kurapika, his voice suddenly the warmest Leorio had ever heard it. He looked over to see Kurapika was smiling slightly. For a second, Leorio wasn’t sure which was creepier, the magic school bus that entombed them, or Kurapika’s bizarrely good mood all of the sudden.

“You’ll have to tell the bus that, not me,” said Leorio. “It’s been waiting here this whole time for you to wake up.”

Kurapika nodded and Leorio finally removed the towel. Kurapika squinted, shading his eyes from the interior lights, which dimmed in response. Leorio groaned, not wanting to believe it, while Kurapika looked around, confused. Leorio pointed to the dashboard, telling Kurapika that the bus had lowered the lights for him. Kurapika seemed politely mystified by this, not certain why the bus would go to such lengths.

“Did—did someone hit me?” asked Kurapika after a moment, touching the still tender side of his face gingerly with his fingers.

“It was Killua,” Leorio immediately lied. “He panicked. Thought it might bring you back to your senses.”

“Ow,” said Kurapika. He rubbed the spot sorely while opening and closing his mouth to check the extent of the damage. “He hits hard for a twelve-year-old.”

“Yeah, well, the kid just, uh, went crazy. I think he was really worried about you.”

“I guess that’s sweet,” said Kurapika, eyeing Killua who was still blissfully asleep against Gon’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for freaking out so much. It’s just really hard to believe all of this stuff that’s happened. I guess I couldn’t handle it.”

“Don’t worry. If it makes you feel better, Killua said you were too smart for this,” said Leorio with a reassuring pat on Kurapika’s back. “He said you trust books too much.”

“This certainly isn’t in any books I’ve ever read,” said Kurapika, indicating the bus around them. “He’s right. It’s a good thing you three are here, or I’d have probably…well, let’s say you’ve been very cool-headed about all this, and I’m thankful for that, Leorio. Also, I appreciate your patience and your kind words.”

Leorio blushed and look away, embarrassed. “It’s nothing. You should see me try to talk down a toddler from a tantrum. That just doesn’t happen. Compared to little kids, calming down adults is a cakewalk.”

“You’re a kind person; I can see why you work in medicine.”

“Kindness isn’t actually a prerequisite for a medical career,” said Leorio dryly. “There’s plenty of jerk doctors and nurses out there. I’m just a naturally uber chill dude.”

This, of course, was a lie. Leorio had terrible temper and a bad habit of resorting to hyperbole in even the most remotely stressful situations. The only thing that helped him retain a tenuous control over himself was the incessant desire to do something instead of just panicking loudly in no particular direction. Leorio was a man of action, yet also of swift and often poor decision making, and it typically earned him mixed results. At the very least, one could say he got things done. The question was whether or not he got them done right.

“Well, they say having a warm, compassionate personality helps your patients recover faster and better,” Kurapika countered. “So you can’t tell me it’s a negative quality to have. And anyway, it was exactly what was needed in this instance, so you should cease arguing and accept my thanks.”

“Fine,” said Leorio, staring at the floor and fidgeting like a reluctant child as he spoke, “I’ll accept it. Now stop mentioning it.”

Kurapika smiled again, and Leorio felt like a loser. He wasn’t entirely sure why he felt that way. Maybe it was because in a small way, saving Kurapika from his stock-still terror meant Leorio was no longer all that necessary to this trip. He’d exhausted the limits of his usefulness in this one simple task of waking Kurapika up. Now, Kurapika would be the one to get the bus to carry them away from here and back to the rest of the class, and Leorio would revert to being nothing more than the overly loud, boorish guy in the back seat, corralling a couple of rambunctious preteens who didn’t respect him and only obeyed Kurapika anyway. It was hard, after stepping up and taking control of the situation, to suddenly not be the only adult around, although on the bright side, it reduced his burden and was technically what he’d wanted.

“So, we should get out of here,” said Leorio. “And I’m serious; you really need to go tell the bus you’re okay. We’re operating under the theory that the bus has a crush on you, and if that’s true, it will only start moving once it’s sure you’re okay.”

Kurapika’s eyes widened in astonishment and disbelief as he looked up towards the dashboard ahead of them. Leorio waved him forward, keeping his expression serious so Kurapika knew it was no laughing matter. Apprehensively, Kurapika brought himself to standing and made his way up to the front, hopping lightly over the sleeping Gon and Killua as he passed them. He lowered himself into the driver’s seat and placed his hands on the flat surface of the control panel. He pressed on it a bit to steady himself, splaying his fingers wide over the cool metal between the knobs and switches. With a deep, slow breath, he readied himself before speaking.

“Um, bus?” he ventured cautiously. Lights began to flicker on the control panel, signifying that the bus was listening, and enthusiastically so. “We need to join the class. I mean, I’m sorry. How are you? I mean, well, we can talk later. Sorry. The important thing is we need to travel up to the nasopharynx and into the nose to see if the class is still in the nasal passages. If not, we’ll have to search for them. Are you ready for that?”

In response, the autopilot button glowed brightly. Kurapika looked back at Leorio, who nodded and began shaking Gon and Killua softly to wake them so they could take a seat and buckle up. Both stood up slowly in a daze and asked why. Gon was the first to notice Kurapika sat, prim and silent, at the helm, waiting for them and their next potentially wild ride together.

“Yay! Mr. Kurta is better!” he cheered to Killua, pulling him forward to the front of the bus so they could meet their rejuvenated student teacher together. In a gesture that stunned Kurapika as much as it warmed him, Gon leapt forward to give him a hug. Kurapika returned it awkwardly as Killua joined in, nearly crushing them both in his exuberance. Killua wasn’t particularly moved by Kurapika’s recovery, not really. In truth, he was mimicking Gon because Gon made suffocating embraces look like fun, and Killua wanted to try it, too. If he cared at all, it was that they were going to make it out of this mess in time for afternoon cartoons.

“You boys ought to sit down,” said Kurapika, patting them both on the backs and then letting them go. “We’re going to be flying soon.”

“Will you freak out again?” asked Gon.

“If you freak out, can I hit you first?” asked Killua.

Kurapika furrowed his brow inquiringly and looked over to Leorio who shrugged and shook his head like he didn’t fucking know.

“I won’t freak out this time,” said Kurapika. “I promise.”

“Yay!” cheered Gon.

“Damn,” muttered Killua. “Let’s go sit down,” he said, dragging Gon after him to the back of the bus. “The fun part of this field trip just ended. I wanna see what the lunch is.”

* * *

Now was the time to finally escape this moist, halitosis prone hell. And yet, the first time Kurapika hit the autopilot button, nothing at all happened. This confused him, so, he asked Leorio for advice. He didn’t like the answer when it was revealed that the last time the bus had moved, it had been because it knew Kurapika was in mortal danger. Kurapika tried the button again, telling the bus that they really, really ought to be going now. Instead, a nearby lever began to twitch, implying he should pull it, which Kurapika did. Again, nothing happened. Kurapika was starting to feel as though the bus was taking him for a fool, and he couldn’t for the life if him imagine why.

As the lengthy seconds passed, Kurapika considered pleading with the bus, maybe even offering it some empty promise to get what he wanted from it. This would be an underhanded tactic, yes, but Kurapika was ready for it if it meant they all got to survive. The problem was, he couldn’t imagine anything a bus might want. Top shelf windshield wiper fluid? An intimate diagnostic and tune-up performed by Kurapika himself? Maybe some kind of titillating car wash once the weather got warmer and Kurapika could feasibly get down and dirty cleaning every nook and cranny in naught but the tiniest of swim shorts? The increasingly explicit things that crossed his mind as he pondered this question were all a bit horrifying, but Kurapika was ready to promise the bus whatever he might have to in order to save them all. He’d just make sure the kids covered their ears first. Perhaps Leorio as well.

“C’mon bus, do your stuff!” shouted Gon from the back with a big, goofy grin. He hadn’t noticed Kurapika was struggling in the driver’s seat ahead of him; he was just super excited that they were finally supposed to be leaving. 

At Gon’s words, though, the engine gave a hopeful sputter and then stopped. Kurapika then knew what the bus wanted him to do. It wanted him to recite the typical phrase of encouragement that Ms. Frizzle always cheered at the start of a magical field trip. This made Kurapika suddenly self-conscious, as he naturally possessed a rather withdrawn personality and was afraid he wouldn’t come off as cheery enough, especially what with the how much he currently feared for his life and the lives of the entire class.

“Come on, bus,” he said, perhaps not as exuberantly as the bus would’ve liked, but it was Kurapika’s first time. “Do…uh, do you your stuff.”

With this, the bus took pity on Kurapika and finally started its engine. Kurapika quickly pressed the autopilot button, thinking it best to remind the bus they were depending on it to do most of the flying itself. With a jolt, the bus soared upwards, out from between the molars and towards the soft palate. It was dark now, and only the headlights of the bus illuminated their way as they flew up and out, passing the uvula with care not to touch it and stimulate the gag reflex as Kurapika warned might happen. They were soon ascending the upper part of the pharynx. Kurapika continued to caution against brushing against any of the fleshy walls around them, helping to lead the bus along the proper path by speaking to it. They were soon back within the familiar nasal passages, and Kurapika ordered to bus to slow down and shine a light down to search for the class below.

“Look out the windows and try to spot your classmates,” said Kurapika into the microphone he’d just noticed had lowered itself down near his head. “Gon and Killua to port and starboard, Leorio to the back window. I’m going to turn off the lights inside the bus to minimize the glare, so take your positions now.”

The three passengers did as they were told and the lights flickered off. This was much eerier than before, because the reminder that they were in a vehicle was reduced. It no longer felt like this might all just be a ride at the world’s most heart-attack inducing amusement park as they started directly out the cool glass panes and down to the wrinkled, snot streaked surface below. Nothing seemed to move except the cilia and hairs that bowed and danced back and forth with each intake of breath that jostled the hovering bus lightly. Kurapika hoped desperately that Remi Padro hadn’t had cause to sniffle while they had been otherwise detained in the mouth. In that case…he didn’t want to consider it, yet.

After several minutes, they reached the light of day at the opening of the nostril, but with no sign of students or Ms. Frizzle anywhere. Kurapika told the bus to go out and check the other nostril, in case the class had somehow, albeit implausibly, managed to end up there. The subsequent search was also fruitless, and Kurapika ordered the bus to anchor itself to the wall of the nostril so the four of them could have a meeting to discuss their next move.

“So it appears as if the others are no longer here,” said Kurapika, glancing between Gon and Killua to measure their reactions. Gon looked concerned. Killua looked annoyed.

“Let’s consider our options,” said Leorio, stepping up to the bad news plate so Kurapika wouldn’t have to break it to the kids himself. “It’s possible they exited the nose in one of two ways. One, Remi blew them out, in which case they are either on his sleeve, or in the trash bin on a tissue. Two, they were sucked further in, either by being inhaled or by being swallowed. So, the question now is where we ought to check first.”

“I vote they were swallowed,” said Kurapika, looking absolutely miserable about it as he said it. “It's far more likely Remi sniffled for whatever natural reason. Or he picked them out and ate them, as almost happened to us. Either way, the most probable conclusion is that they’ve descended into the digestive tract.”

“Then we should go down there and look for them,” said Gon. Kurapika shook his head.

“No, you won’t go,” he said, suddenly stern. “The digestive tract is extremely destructive by nature. It’s meant to break down food and contains many perilous, caustic agents designed to assist in preforming that function. Furthermore, it’s a relatively closed system, and once inside we’ll have to follow its designated course until the very end. If anything goes wrong while we’re inside, we won’t be able to easily escape. Therefore, I’ve decided I’m not going to risk your lives on this. I’m going to take you three back to school, and them I’m going back to look for the class alone.”

“That’s isn’t fair,” said Killua. If there was one thing he disapproved of immensely, and in truth there were many things he disapproved of to such a degree, it was being left out of a perilous adventure. Briefly, he thought that maybe another, harder slap to Kurapika’s face may be in order, just to bring the man back to the senses he’d clearly lost since he’d been unconscious. There was no way Killua would be denied something so dangerous and by proxy awesome as a trip to the digestive tract. “We’ve been doing great so far together. And the bus is magic, so it’s super safe.”

Kurapika hesitated, not sure how to express what was really worrying him more than the danger. Sitting there didn’t feel like the right place, and it definitely wasn’t the right audience. Children did not need to hear Kurapika’s grimmest presumptions of their classmates’ fates, even if those children were both nearly teenagers. What if Kurapika’s fear was true? What if they entered the stomach only to find all of their classmates burning, possibly already drowned, in a sea of acid, their agonized screams having been stifled by the many-layered gastrointestinal walls encasing them? The class had been dressed in preparation to explore airways, not brave the caustic elements of the first step of the digestive tract. If they really had ended up in the stomach, that was not a horror Kurapika was prepared to expose his two remaining students to.

“Leorio,” said Kurapika, looking the man directly in the eye as he spoke. “Can you take care of Gon and Killua and watch them until school lets out? I can’t promise I’ll be back before the school day ends.”

Leorio grimaced; not liking how grave Kurapika had become all of the sudden. As a man of medicine, Leorio knew full well what the digestive tract was capable of. He even suspected the same thing that Kurapika himself was so afraid of, and he agreed with him that it was a trip the two boys in their care definitely did not need to take. Still, he wasn’t too eager to leave Kurapika to take undergo the risk alone, either. For one, Kurapika had proven himself repeatedly to be emotionally unreliable in the clutch, and without someone around to pull him out of it, he was destined for disaster as soon as things started going south. For two, well….

“Are you so sure the bus will let you look for them in such a dangerous place?” asked Leorio, embarrassed that he had to bring it up, but not about to ignore the very real possibility that if they left Remi Padro’s body now, they would be unable to return. “The bus might not agree with this.”

“Damn, that’s right,” said Kurapika, momentarily forgetting his audience of impressionable youths. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard Killua say worse already, but he still felt a twinge of disappointment in himself for slipping into mild profanity while technically still at school.

“In that case, let’s check the respiratory tract,” said Gon. “It’s better than nothing, right?”

“The respiratory tract is less dangerous,” Leorio agreed. “Pulling oxygen from the air is less volatile than breaking food down into energy. I don’t see why we can’t give it a shot.”

Leorio stared Kurapika down as he said this, trying to somehow hint with only his eyes that if the class was indeed in the stomach, the cause was already lost an hour ago and saving time by rushing there now would accomplish a lot of nothing at too great a risk.

“I suppose it’s good to check just in case, while we’re in here,” said Kurapika, understanding. “If the bus ends up not letting me back in, and the class is actually somehow in the lungs, then we’ll lose the chance to save them. We’ll check there first before I take you all back to school. Or well, I guess we’re already in school. But you know what I mean.”

“Sure thing,” said Gon, rushing to the nearest seat and buckling up. Killua scrambled after him, whooping merrily in anticipation of seeing more guts, even if they weren’t as cool as brains. Leorio offered a reassuring smile to Kurapika before taking the seat over his shoulder, well within reach of the controls or Kurapika himself if anything were to go wrong.

“Full steam ahead,” Leorio said, adjusting his glasses before buckling up. “Let’s finish this field trip.”

* * *

Kurapika once more took the helm and began to help guide the bus back down the nasal passages and into the nasopharynx. He had to literally coax the bus forward every millimeter of the way down, as the bus didn’t seem to be fully convinced it wasn’t being tricked into travelling down to the digestive tract. To pass the time, Leorio decided to play teacher with Kurapika’s students.

“Let’s go over this, guys, because you sure as hell aren’t getting out of here without learning something,” said Leorio to Gon and Killua, who both sighed and went limp in their seats in protest. “What is the medical name of the windpipe? It connects the pharynx, where we are now, and the larynx, where we’re going next, to the lungs. It is made of rings of cartilage and you can even feel it in your throat if you press there.” Leorio demonstrated how to find the windpipe despite this being something obvious.

“Like I know what it’s called,” said Gon, “I didn’t read the chapter yet. We should’ve looked for the textbook while we were in the nostril.”

“You don’t need a textbook when you’ve got me, kids,” Leorio boasted with a cheesy grin. “I know the respiratory system like the back of my hand. Now, you’ve never had to intubate a person, but the part I’m asking you about is related to that procedure.”

“What is intubating?” asked Killua. “Did you stick wires in people?”

“That’s…actually kind of close, I guess,” said Leorio, thinking hard about it. “But it was tubes. Because, in-TUBE-ation. _Tubes_ , Killua.”

“So you stuck tubes up people?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘up’ them.”

“You shoved tubes down people’s throats?”

“Basically, yes, but down the windpipe, and that kind of intubation has a name that tells you exactly where it happens.”

Killua thought for a moment. “So, windpipe-tubation?”

“No,” said Leorio, not amused.

“In-windpipe-tubation?”

“Are you even trying?” asked Leorio. “Windpipe is the colloquial term, not the medical one. It’s called tracheal intubation. Okay? Which mean it takes place where? In the…?”

“I know!” said Gon, lighting up. “ _In the tracheal._ ” 

Leorio buried his face in his hands, defeated. “Trachea,” he muttered weakly. “It’s called the trachea. The tube of cartilaginous rings that connects the pharynx and larynx to the lungs.”

“I mean, that’s basically what Gon said,” said Killua dismissively. “Same difference.”

“Tracheal is an adjective, Killua,” said Leorio.

They were interrupted that moment by Kurapika calling back to warn them to hang into something just in case. They were going to enter with a breath of air into the larynx to save time, and there was a high chance they were in for a bump ride. Kurapika was apprehensive about an unexpected gust of air knocking them into the pulmonary irritant receptors and instigating the cough reflex, and so he decided the best middle ground was to travel along with an intake of breath that was already underway and hope the exhale wasn’t strong enough to push them off course as they headed down one of the bronchi. After explaining this to the passengers, he counted to three, encouraged the bus by telling it to do its stuff, and they were off, zooming away from the raised epiglottis which Leorio was barely able to call attention to as it passed and through the vocal folds Leorio didn’t even bother to outline, because he remembered they were barely mentioned in the chapter on respiration anyway.

“Are we going left or right?” asked Leorio as they came into sight of the carina and the diverging bronchi leading to the two lungs. Kurapika had slowed the bus so that it was hovering in the rhythmic torrents of air passing back and forth around them.

“Which lung is bigger?” asked Kurapika. “Maybe start with the smaller one since it will be faster?”

“The right one is bigger, and there’s less heart beating against it, which might make it more stable for travelling around.”

“Good point, maybe we should check there first until we get the hang of navigating the different levels of the bronchi.”

“Are you sure? The left lung might be faster, like you said.”

“Not if we crash into something,” said Kurapika with a weary sigh. He hunched over then, looking incredible worn-out. Etched across his face were more years than Leorio could remember having seen before. Clearly the stress was causing him to prematurely age. Leorio imagined Kurapika might go home with a few white hairs after this.

“The pathways in the lungs follow a dendritic configuration,” said Kurapika while rubbing his eyes tiredly. “Seemingly endless bifurcating branches, like trees, and we have to make it down to each twig. It’s approximate to traversing an entire river basin without ever leaving the water. And now, right in front of us is the first choice of many: left or right bronchus? Up or down? This way or that one? All of it ceaseless searching, and in the end, there might not even be anything here.”

“If it makes you feel better,” said Leorio, fighting not to fall into he same depressing trap Kurapika had just succumb to, “there’s tens of thousands of bronchioles, those being the smallest branches, in each lung. There’s around 30,000 in each lung, actually. So, you know, they aren’t infinite.”

“I’m not sure how this is supposed to make me feel better,” said Kurapika.

“It’s to say that I have a good idea how many ‘twigs’ there are, as well as the hundreds of millions of alveoli sacs at their ends—which hopefully I’m right and we’re much too large to enter, so there’s no chance anyone else has got that far—and yet, I’m prepared to search them all.”

As he listened to this exceptional, surpassingly cool and composed version of Leorio, Kurapika’s face filled with an emotion akin to awe, but more a subtle shade of tempered, quiet respect for the man he’d merely considered something of a glorified babysitter when the field trip had started, even if the truth was that one the people Leorio’d been assigned to babysit was Kurapika himself. Playing the buffoon with the children, playing the doctor in an emergency, and then playing the heroic when all seemed hopeless was an odd collection of disparate rolls that had somehow found themselves fastened together and sealed into one gangly legged package donning a tiny pair of ridiculously useless, sweet-ass vintage teashades. 

This was the first mystery of the great, perplexing study in contrast that was Leorio Paladinknight: a man vain enough to wear a suit to a middle school field trip, yet humble enough to take advice from a twelve-year-old when shit hit the fan. Kurapika was getting a glimpse into the damn sun right now, and the best thing for it was to avert one’s eyes before all the impossible contradictions overwhelmed the senses.

“We’ll go right,” said Kurapika at last before turning back to the controls. “Bus,” he said, resuming command, “keep a look out for any particles, anything that moves, as we make our way down.”

From the front of the bus emerged two large, blinking eyes on the end of long, antenna-like protrusions that were segmented for movement. These eyes searched this way and that, seemingly with their own individual minds. As the bus progressed forward, it scanned the area they passed and projected the results on a radar screen in the corner of the dashboard for those inside to follow. At the first split in the path, Leorio suggested they let the eyes scan down both ways as far as they could, and then gave a coin to Gon to flip and decide which direction the bus would travel. Kurapika agreed to this, and kept his eyes trained on the map slowly being pieced together on the monitor in front of him so that they wouldn’t get lost.

Shockingly, it was only fifteen minutes before they picked up something of note in the channel of one of the first secondary bronchiole they entered. At first this image was little more than a speck on the screen, but Gon, the one with the sharpest eyes of anyone in the bus, recognized it as a human form before even the bus registered that it had observed anything extraordinary. In fact, when he announced it was likely a person up ahead, the bus seemed to zoom in with an immense sense of incredulity shared by both the adults on board. They were soon proved wrong, however, as the shape turned out to be exactly the silhouette of a human figure. It was still visible on the radar, so it was hard to tell who it might be, but it was definitely someone.

“Please let this be a good sign,” muttered Leorio. He reached for Gon and Killua, debating whether or not to hold them back, just in case the figure in front of them was hurt or broken in some way that children didn’t need to see. However, the figure was soon revealed to be moving. In fact, it was coming right towards them with the propulsion of something resembling a jetpack strapped to its shoulders.

“Hello at long last, Mr. Kurta and Mr. Paladinknight! I was wondering when you’d catch up with the rest of the class.”

* * *

Leorio tripped so hard over his own feet in his haste to get the microphone that he was certain he’d come close to breaking his nose as his face slammed into the floor. Instead, Kurapika answered the call that came in over the intercom.

“Hello, Ms. Frizzle. Is the class with you?” asked Kurapika, converting into an instant professional without a shred of his former dread and despair showing in his voice as he spoke. Ms. Frizzle appearing had been a goddamn miracle cure.

“They’re with Liz back in the alveolar sac,” said Ms. Frizzle, hovering right outside with her magical jetpack keeping her aloft. Liz, who’d she’d just referred to, was the class’s pet lizard. One of the shocking things Kurapika had discovered in his first field trip was that this reptile was as intelligent as any adult human. He’d even observed it operating the bus while Ms. Frizzle was conducting a lesson.

“Um, how is that even possible?” demanded Leorio, snatching the microphone out of Kurapika’s hand. “There’s no way they’d fit down there at our size.”

“The protective suits can alter size,” said Ms. Frizzle, pointing to a small panel of controls located on her wrist. “It’s really comes in handy when the bronchiole decrease in size and you reach the alveolar duct. Now, please be so kind as to ask Gon and Killua to suit up so they can join the class. We wouldn’t want them to miss the end of their field trip, would we? You’re right on time.”

Leorio heard a crash and spun around to see Gon and Killua racing manically for their just descended protective suits coming down from a compartment in the ceiling. These they scramble to put on as soon as possible before exiting the bus through a weird hatch that had suddenly appeared in the floor. The atmosphere in the bus remained unchanged, and yet Gon and Killua were now outside without having brought any of the outside in. Leorio gaped after them, microphone still clenched tightly in his hand and transmitting the sound of his disbelieving gasp to all who could receive the transmission.

“The bus will follow us,” said Ms. Frizzle. “No need to drive.”

Kurapika sat back obediently, separating himself from the controls. The odd shrinking sensation Leorio had felt at the beginning of the trip struck again a few more times as they progressed further down the different levels of the bronchiole branches, tapering to the point where they finally ended and the alveolar ducts began. 

“Doesn’t it just leave you breathless?” asked Ms. Frizzle, planting her hands on her hips and taking all the marvelous aspect of the alveolar sac in as they entered. Leorio narrowed his eyes at her, but refrained from commenting. He was too happy to be alive to take that much offense at a bad joke right now.

In this way, the adventure was over. Leorio, Kurapika, Gon and Killua had all survived. Young and quick to mend, Gon and Killua proceed to celebrate their eagerly anticipated field trip, blindly happy as if a switch had been flipped and they where now completely unaware that only moments before they’d been fearing for their lives. The breakdown of their student teacher, the screaming of the weird nurse guy, and the disgusting revelation that Remi Padro ate his boogers were but figments of a hazy dream that had long since passed.

No so quick to recover and cursed to never, ever forget, the two adults of the party perhaps weren’t as eager to let bygones be bygones. Leorio, for one, still hated the bus and blamed it for everything bad that had transpired in the past three hours. Meanwhile, Kurapika could still feel his raw nerves dangling, burnt out and exposed from a far too frequently triggered fight-or-flight response pushed past a limit he hadn’t been aware it had until now. Both adults had perhaps discovered something new about themselves, their ability to accept the unexplainable, and how adequately or not they were prepared to deal with the subsequent stress. However, because they were fully realized, grown adults, they were also to learn absolutely nothing from the experience and trudge on in much the same way as always, distancing themselves from the experience like a bad memory, as if memories were a thing people could actually escape.

But the magic school bus wasn’t the thing of memories. No, it was extremely, unequivocally real. Kurapika Kurta still had six months with Ms. Frizzle. Leorio Paladiknight still had his long-term substitute position in the nurse’s office. The journey of the respiratory system had only just ended, but the journey into the world of magic and of school buses had only just begun. 

It was high time they took chances, made mistakes, and got messy. To the bus!

 

-End-

###### Endnote:

My work here is done. I miiiiiight consider adding on to this later, but I would have to be really bored first.


End file.
